In the middle of December of the third year of Chongzhen, when Zhai Sang heard from the mouths of Yang Zhen and Hasgan that his eldest daughter Hari Zhula had been promoted to the concubine of the Ming Emperor, who was second only to the empress, he quickly decided to bet on both the Ming Dynasty and the Jurchens at the same time.

On the one hand, Zhaisang, who was already injured, continued to claim illness and was bedridden, and used this as an excuse to cancel the arrangement to go to Shenyang City to participate in the Hajj pilgrimage on the fifth year of Dajin Guotiancong.

Ever since he learned the exact news of Hari Zhula and Manzhu Xili, Zhai Sang had already hesitated about whether to go to Shenyang as usual and meet his brother-in-law and son-in-law Huang Taiji.

Because the affairs of Hari Zhula and Manzhu Xili in the Southern Dynasty can be big or small.

If Huang Taiji or the big people in the Jurchen Eight Banners who don't deal with Huang Taiji grasp this point and have to make a big fuss, then once Zhaisang goes, whether he can return to Horqin safely and securely is a question.

Especially in the middle of December, before leaving, Zhai Sang met Yang Zhen and other envoys from the Ming Dynasty, and learned that his eldest daughter had become a noble concubine in the palace of the Ming Dynasty emperor second only to the queen, and his current de facto eldest son Manzhu Xili also held an official position in the court of the Ming Dynasty.

Even if Huang Taiji himself doesn't care about this matter for the sake of his close relationship with the Horqin left-wing Mongolian tribe, or for the sake of his sister Zhezhe and his daughter Bumu Butai, can those powerful people in the small court of the Later Jin Kingdom, especially those Eight Banner Banner Lords and nobles who were born in the Aixin Jueluo family, not care about this matter?!

That's impossible!

Jaisangbel, who was born in the Horqin left-wing Borzigit family, has experienced countless deceits and deceits in the Horqin grassland, so he has never naively thought of others, especially the Jurchens, how kind they are, let alone pinning their personal safety or the future and fate of the Horqin left-wing Mongols on the benevolence of others.

After Huang Taiji heard that Hari Zhula was canonized as a concubine by the emperor of the Ming Dynasty, he made a detour to Horqin on the way to the west to conquer Monan, and accepted the daughter of the right-wing Mongolian tribe Bel Kongol of Horqin as the side of Fujin, which had already made Zhaisang, who also heard about this matter, vigilant.

Subsequently, Huang Taiji's various arrangements in the process of conquering Mo Nan and entering Xuanda also made Zhai Sang feel some possible risks.

After returning from the failure of the southern expedition, Zhaisang, who returned to his own territory on the left wing of Horqin, often couldn't help but think, if Huangtaiji's southern expedition to the Ming Dynasty was successful, what kind of arrangements would be made for the left wing of Horqin on the way back to the army?

Now that the battle has been lost, the four tribes of Horqin have been changed to the Mongolian flag system subject to the Yellow Banner of the Nuzhen, if the battle is won, must the four tribes of Horqin or even more Mongolian tribes be directly incorporated into the Eight Banners of the Houjin State?

It made him shudder!

What Zhai Sang didn't know was that Huang Taiji in history did just that, and a few years later, all the attached Mongol tribes would be changed and incorporated into the command system of the Jurchen Eight Banners.

It's just that the original historical Zhaisang, as well as other upper-class nobles in Horqin, had no room for resistance.

This life is different, they have other choices.

At least Zhaisan, the leader of the left-wing Mongol tribes in Korqin, has other options.

At the same time, in order not to overly irritate his brother-in-law and son-in-law Huang Taiji, he still arranged for his mother, who is also the mother of Huang Taiji's eldest concubine Zhezhe, to take his youngest son, the younger brother of Bumu Butai's mother, to go to the Khan's palace in Shenyang to pay tribute.

In doing so, he continued to bet on the side of the Jurchens of Dajin Kingdom, and continued to try his best to maintain the relationship between the two sides.

On the other hand, Jaisan personally wrote a long letter to his daughter, the concubine of Emperor Chongzhen of the Ming Dynasty, Hari Zhula, and brought it back to the Ming Dynasty with Hasgan and handed it to Hari Zhula.

At the same time, Zhai Sang also verbally accepted the most lenient of all the conditions brought by Yang Zhen and Deng Tianhe, namely:

The Horqin left-wing Mongol tribes remained strictly neutral in future wars between the Jurchens and the Ming in exchange for official trade with the Ming Dynasty.

Jaisan not only had envy, jealousy and fear of the rapid rise of the Kulen Mongols south of the Tar River in the past two or three years, but he also deeply understood the reason why the Kulen tribe was able to rise rapidly.

One reason is that the Kulun Department received a steady stream of assistance from Liaodong Town in the Ming Dynasty.

Another reason, and even more important, was that the Kulen tribe had the privilege of trading with the Ming Dynasty's official and private merchants.

Enkhbayar, the leader of the Kulen tribe, was not only able to obtain a large amount of grain from the Ming Dynasty, but also was able to buy a large amount of iron tools from the Ming Dynasty that could not be produced in the grasslands.

Among these iron tools, in addition to swords and arrows, even iron armor can be exchanged for cattle, sheep and horses, and even the legendary cement concrete, which the Mongols of the Kulen tribe can obtain in large quantities, what kind of opportunity is this!?

In Zaisang's view, it was this kind of mutual trade privilege with the Ming Dynasty that enabled the Kulen tribe to leap from a small tribe with a total population of less than 10,000 to a large tribe of more than 30,000 people and horses in just a few years by incorporating the scattered population of various tribes in the Eastern Mongolian steppe, and even became a Mongolian tribe that could compete with his Horqin left wing.

Speaking of which, there are now only three large and distinct Mongolian tribes left in the Eastern Mongolian steppe north and south of the West Lamulun River and the West Liao River.

One is that the Horqin Mongol tribes, including the four banners of Horqin, the front and back, the left and right.

the other is that the Karaqin Mongol tribes, which defected to the Ming Dynasty earlier and received a lot of benefits from it;

The other is that in the war of the Eastern Mongolian coalition army convened by Horqin to conquer the Karaqin Mongol tribes, he defected to the Kulun Department of the Ming Dynasty.

Today, judging from the size of the human tribe, the Horqin Mongols, including the Horqin Fourth Division, still have the advantage.

However, in terms of the survivability of each tribe on the steppe, whether it is the Karaqin tribes led by Kundulun Khan Burhatu, or the Kulun Mongols who have risen rapidly in recent years by absorbing the scattered population of the steppe, they are much stronger than the four tribes of Horqin.

Because, the Mongols of the Karaqin tribes and the Kulun tribe all had the support of the Ming Dynasty, and they could trade with the Ming Dynasty.

For this point, Beile Zhaisang, who is the most southward and closest to the sphere of influence of the Ming Dynasty among the four parts of Horqin, is already very clear in his heart.

From the winter of the third year of Chongzhen to the spring of the fourth year of Chongzhen, the situation of famine in various tribes was a little better than that in Houjin.

For them, the drought of the weather is the same as the cold.

However, unlike the usual frequent snow disasters, severe drought caused the grass to die earlier, and in previous months, when the heavy snow covered the grasslands, causing snow disasters, there was no heavy snow on the grasslands.

Although the pasture grass on the grassland has long since dried up, it can still provide some forage for the cattle and sheep to spend the winter.

With forage, cattle and sheep will not starve to death in batches.

And with cattle and sheep, the Mongolians on the steppe had a source of food and clothing.

Even if there is a drought, there will be fewer cattle and sheep in the tribe than in previous years, but it will not be nothing, so that a large number of old and weak people will die of cold and starvation.

In particular, the Mongols of the Karaqin and Kulun tribes were in a much better situation than the four tribes of Horqin and the Mongol tribes of Mobei.

Because of the trade of Liaodong, Jibei and Xuanda along the border of the Ming Dynasty, the door was not closed to them, the Mongolian tribes of the outer vassals.

On the contrary, the Imperial Interior Office and the merchants of the Nine Sides were not only able to trade with them, but only with them.

Today, the Mongols of the Kulen tribe traded with caravans from Liaodong, Jibei and Biannai in the Ming Dynasty, mainly in the city of Yingzhou (three towers, later known as Chaoyang, Liaoning).

The Karaqin tribes were more relaxed, and they could trade in Yingzhou City, as well as in Ningcheng, Balihan and even Rehe City, and trade with the Ming official and private caravans that traveled from south to north.

Their cattle, sheep, horses, dairy products, and other common things on the grassland can be exchanged for them in sufficient quantities of forage, salt tea, spirits, and grain, such as stick noodles, dried potatoes, and dried sweet potatoes.

In particular, stick noodles and dried sweet potatoes, two coarse grains with high yield and low price in the Ming Dynasty, have become the life-saving food of many Mongolians in the Karaqin and Kulun tribes in the Eastern Mongolian grasslands where food is scarce from the winter of the third year of Chongzhen to the spring of the fourth year of Chongzhen.

All of these strategic materials that were forbidden to be exported to the Later Jin State and the Mongolian tribes that were attached to the Later Jin State were openly supplied to the Mongolian tribes attached to the Ming Dynasty in Yingzhou, Ningcheng, Balihan, Rehe, Duolunuoer and several important border fields on the nine sides, and to the Mongolian tribes such as the Karaqin Tribes, the Kulun Tribe, and Duolunuoer who were attached to the Ming Dynasty.

As long as you have the money, you can buy it.

If you don't have money, you have sheep, cows, horses, furs, and all sorts of dairy products, which can also be bartered for outright.

If you don't have the money or enough supplies such as cattle, sheep, horses, etc., that's okay.

As long as you have the guarantee of those governors, governors, general soldiers or supervisors stationed outside the border, you can even apply for a small low-interest loan from the branch of the Huangming Jingshi Bank in Rehe or Guihua.

Of course, Zaisang didn't know the details of this, but he understood that it was precisely because the Karaqin and Kulun tribes in the south had the privilege of trading with the Ming Dynasty that their life was better than that of Korqin.

If it is compared to the Mongols who are far away in Mobei, it is much better.